The Remnants
by pinfeather
Summary: After the Event, it's not easy to survive. Stacia, once a fan of Fang's blog, finds herself alone in the wilderness . . . until she meets the mutant formerly known as Omega, and survival becomes that much more complicated. Sequel to The Protest, set during Maximum Ride Forever.
1. The Event

**I enjoyed writing _The Protest,_ about Fang's fans,but felt pretty concerned about the characters, considering what happens later in the series. I spent quite a bit of time thinking about how they could possibly survive. And of course, I like the chance to tie up loose ends Patterson left lying around.**

 **So here it is: the first chapter. This is the first longer fic I've done in this fandom. This gets off to a slow start, but some canon characters will appear later on.**

* * *

Stacia was on TV during the protests, and then she was on TV again when a reporter interviewed her. The reporters liked to focus more on Brynn. People liked Brynn. It was odd. Usually Stacia, the cheerleader, was the one who got all the attention, while quiet, bookish Brynn faded into the background. Stacia didn't mind giving up the spotlight for a little while.

They kept a scrapbook of the Flock. Stacia cut out pictures from the newspaper when the Flock visited Congress. She and Brynn watched the opening ceremony for the Lerner School for Gifted Children.

"Do you think the lizard girl is there?" Brynn asked from the comfort of the couch.

"Probably. She'd have to be."

They thought about the lizard girl a lot, but they never heard anything about her again. Stacia really hoped she was okay.

They even followed the fairly boring trials of the Itex scientists who were arrested. Marian Janssen, the Director, was the most dramatic. She looked all dirty and messy in the news pictures. Some scientists, like Jeb Batchelder, testified against her.

The height of the craze was when Stacia's grandparents took her and Brynn to the CSM airshow in Tallahassee. They saw the Flock flying _in person._

After that, things kind of . . . changed. People started posting crazy things, and then vanished from the blog comment section. Omar was one of them. There were rumors about something called a Doomsday group, and the possibility of having wings of their own.

When they heard about Omar going missing, Brynn's mom banned her from the blog. She said it was becoming a bad influence and anyway the Flock was out of control and no one was parenting them. Stacia's grandparents didn't pay as much attention, so Stacia kept reading the blog and sharing updates with Brynn.

The Flock had changed. There were rumors that they'd had split up before, but most people thought it was probably a tactical thing, all part of the plan. This didn't seem like part of a plan. Fang pointedly avoided the subject in his posts, even when people asked about it in the comments.

But he posted that he was looking for kids with powers. And then pictures and videos started to appear, and there was Fang with strangers. 'Fang's gang.' There was a girl who looked like Max, with short, pink-streaked hair, but she wasn't Max. News articles still popped up about the Flock, but Fang was gone and in his place was a kid named Dylan.

It was clear to Stacia and plenty of others what had happened. Fang and Max had broken up.

But Brynn wasn't allowed on the blog anymore, and Stacia kept up with it less and less. Maybe she was outgrowing it.

On January 1, her family headed north to go skiing in Colorado. Just Stacia, Grandma and Grandpa. They offered to take Brynn, but her parents already had plans.

On January 9, sometime between midnight and morning, a meteor broke up in Earth's atmosphere.

Stacia woke up to find her grandparents watching TV, sitting close. Her grandmother twined a rosary through her fingers again and again, drawing the beads tight.

East coast, west coast, both flooded by massive waves. Stacia's heart turned loose and jello-like and she grabbed for her phone.

Brynn did not answer her cell. Or her house phone. A pleasant robotic voice said, "The number you have called is not in service at this time."

The TV played footage of meteorites tracing glowing paths against the sky. When Stacia looked out the window, she saw the sky shimmering. The clear blue from yesterday was gone.

"Is the world ending?" Stacia asked at some point. She'd always thought the end of the world meant Jesus coming back. But the world still existed. There was no triumphant trumpet-call signalling a final end. There was no end. The world dragged on and on, dying but not yet dead, never dead.

They turned to the internet on Grandpa's laptop, and saw news of bombings. Some news sites had already shut down as their servers lost power. Whole countries went dark.

One of the surviving servers was the host of Fang's blog. From the days of the Itex protests and that one infamous post where Fang explained the By-Half Plan, the site had kept a survivalist side as well as an environmental one. Kids talking about what to do in case of a zombie invasion, or whitecoat invasion, or what have you.

Well, now it had happened. And Fang's blog became a hub of kids and even adults trading information.

Fang wasn't posting anymore. He hadn't posted since before the Event. He'd lost his connection to the Internet, like so many others—or, more likely, he was just dead.

Switzerland, of all places, apparently had the entire population living in fallout shelters. Getting to Switzerland, however, was a bit of a tall order.

Freak weather kept Stacia's family isolated in the hotel. Guests and workers bailed, heading out on a crazed quest to get to their loved ones—and as time went on, the quest for food became more pressing. One worker came back inside with his face bloodied and eyes blackened, to tell news of groups serving the One Light. Just kids, barely teenagers, but armed with guns and shooting whoever they saw in a sadistic counting game. And something about the Horsemen of the Apocalypse?

A few people in the hotel were sick. Grandma and Grandpa and Stacia decided to lay low, rarely leaving their room, living mainly off breakfast bars and bottled water. They rationed it carefully. The weather had gone nuts, avalanches all over the ski course, but they figured they could wait it out. The hotel was still pretty safe.

Then Grandma got sick.

Grandpa went out to try to get medicine and supplies.

"Take care of your grandma," he told Stacia. "I'll be back soon."

But he didn't come back. That day or the next.

Stacia went downstairs to look for him and possibly some more food. The hotel manager was no longer answering his door. Someone cried in one of the hotel rooms, gut-wrenching screaming sobs, and when Stacia knocked, the person howled for her to go away.

In the lobby, the glass windows had been smashed. Drifts of snow covered the floor and the air was freezing. She heard guns firing off in the distance a few times, and she knew the gangs were around again.

She checked the hotel restaurant, but it was locked up tight. They would find no food there.

Grandma was coughing constantly now and was too weak to even get up.

And Stacia wasn't feeling great either. Red bumps swelled on her skin. One day, when she was trying to open some of their last crackers, one of the bumps burst. It didn't heal.

At some point she crawled into bed with Grandma, who didn't respond. She closed her eyes tightly. Sleep offered her a way out of the now-gnawing hunger.

Some time later, she opened her eyes blearily and saw a figure leaning over her, in a gas mask. She hurt all over, aching all the way down to her bones.

A green-gloved hand sank a needle into her arm, and she lost consciousness.


	2. Hello, Patient C

Stacia woke up on a narrow cot. It rattled slightly when she moved. Her skin was covered in thick, scratchy bandages. An IV stand stood near the bed, empty and unused. The nearest wall was entirely covered in shelves full of medicine bottles.

She sat up slowly, groaning. She felt weak and blobby.

Her left leg was gone. It ended at the knee. Stacia just kind of looked at it for a minute. Like, oh. Okay. Leg is gone. How about that.

From overhead came a click, and then a voice. It was a man's voice, breathy and a little nasal. "Hello, Patient C. This is a recording. I thought it would be courteous to let you know what is going on.

He interrupted himself with a phlegmy cough, and went on. "You were a victim of the H8E virus outbreak. If you are listening to this: Hurray. You survived.

"Perhaps you are wondering some of the details. You contracted the disease by inhaling an airborne toxin. Perhaps you experienced a cough or a rash, before developing numerous boils which broke into open sores. A staph infection set in, then necrotizing fasciitis, or flesh-eating bacteria. I had to amputate your lower left leg, and several of the toes on your right foot. Sorry about that.

He coughed again. "I also tested some rumors. If it works . . . well, if you're listening to this, then I suppose we can assume that it has worked. You can breathe on your own at this point. I am . . . removing the intravenous fluids. There's not much point to them anymore, because I won't be able to work on you much longer."

"Who are you?" Stacia asked, still drowsy, half-dazed and in shock.

"I am afraid this is goodbye, Patient C," said the recording. "You've been a very valuable source of research. But all I can do now is wish you luck."

She eventually made it out of the room. She wasn't sure how long she'd been out, but her leg was mostly healed, and her muscles had gone flabby from lack of exercise. Someone, most likely the guy on the recording had been moving her and exercising her while she was unconscious to keep her muscles from atrophying, but wasn't like her old workout regimes. He had also left a wheelchair folded up in the corner. She had to unfold it and then propel herself in it out of the room.

She was in a house, though a strange house. Papers collected dust everywhere. There was a huge cage in one corner, with colorful oversized bird toys and a mirror. The door to the cage hung ajar.

There was another door, past that. Stacia eased it open and saw a figure lying on the ground. The smell told her all she needed to know, and she eased the door shut again.

Dead person's house. Okay. She could work with that.

The kitchen had already been ransacked. Boxes of cereal torn open, the fridge door ajar and smelling of spoiled milk. There were cans of food everywhere. Apparently someone had been trying to open them by bashing them against counters or chairs – the marks showed everywhere. Not a single can was anywhere near the electric can opener on the counter island.

She opened a can of tuna and slurped the fishy-tasting water. She gobbled down the pink chunks of meat. As she started in on a second can, she looked over some of the dusty papers.

The Itex symbol was on them.

She almost spat out her tuna, and then began rifling through the papers. There were pages of notes—some of them, she realized, on her. "Patient C."

Patient C had been found in the company of an elderly female, already deceased. Grandma. Stacia covered her mouth as tears welled in her eyes.

So what cure had this nameless scientist found? It was impossible to say. The later pages grew increasingly incomprehensible, and among them there were scattered tissues freckled with blood. He'd been getting sick too, even as he studied Stacia.

She put the papers to the side and tied booting up the computer she found. She tried some news sites, but quite a few gave her the message "unable to reach server." Sites were already failing. On a whim, she tried Fang's blog. There were still no updates from Fang, but plenty from everyone else.

There were dozens of comments on Stacia's last post. First message after message, asking if she was all right. Then, further down, it became a sort of memorial wall. _We miss you lots and lots girlwiththemojo... I met her once she was really cool and she showed me how to do a handstand... I hope somday we will see each othr again in heven._ Among the final comments was one from . . .

"Brynn," Stacia whispered.

 _Brynn was alive._

At least, she'd been alive two weeks ago, the date of the comment. Stacia had assumed—Well. Florida was one of the first places to go in the flooding caused by the Event.

For some reason, the possibility of Brynn being alive was what made Stacia completely break down in tears. She doubled over in the stupid wheelchair, with her head on her knees. That only reminded her more that she was never going to be a cheerleader again, that she had lost everybody, that she had lost everything. She cried until her head ached.

Until she heard shifting noises and looked up, still sniffling.

A creature was watching her from the hallway.


	3. And Who Are You?

The creature in the hallway looked half like a giant bird and half like a teenaged boy. His pale brown eyes were very bright, and he stared unblinkingly at the open tuna can she held.

His clothes were filthy, and under them he had what looked like a solid coat of feathers. He was also wearing a dog collar.

Very slowly, Stacia set the can on the ground and scooted it towards him. He was on it in a second, licking out the remaining meat. Then he ruffled his feathers—his wings were huge, nearly filling the room—and sat up and looked at her.

"What's your name?" Stacia said.

He let out a questioning trill. Though his face was human and inquisitive, he didn't seem to comprehend a word she said.

She reached out, and he tensed.

"It's okay," she said. She carefully unclipped the collar. It was one of those shock collars, with a black box and two metal prongs that dug into his neck. The box looked corroded. She guessed the batteries had been dead for a while, but he wouldn't know that.

"See?" she said. She made sure he watched as she tossed it into the wastebin. He jumped as it clattered inside. "Gone. It can't hurt you anymore."

She opened a can of ravioli for him and then another for herself. He seemed less nervous now, and studied the bulletin board on the wall. He tore down a photo, shaking free dust, and showed it to her.

It was a clipping from a newspaper, a photo of the Flock from the time they'd talked to Congress. Last year. When there had still been a world and a future. When Stacia had her family and her legs and this world would have been unthinkable.

"That's Fang," Stacia said, pointing to faces. "And that's Max."

"Maaaax," the bird boy said. He seemed to recognize this photo. He must have looked at it a lot in the past. Maybe he'd never met any other bird kids.

"Yeah," said Stacia. "Maximum Ride."

* * *

Stacia learned to maneuver around the house, more or less, using the wheelchair or a makeshift crutch. There were a lot of falls, a lot of angry weeping. The back bedroom smelled really bad, but she didn't feel like going in there to clean up or give her "savior" a good burial. Neither did the bird boy. He was apparently Patient A. She wondered who Patient B was.

They started venturing outside early on. They were still in wintry Colorado, but out in the middle of nowhere, with a dirt road winding away into the distance. The shimmering sky cast a strange light on everything. Off in the east rose columns of smoke. There were no birds or animals. Nothing stirred.

A few days later, as they parked out on the front porch nursing cans of condensed milk, they saw wings in the sky.

Stacia shouted and called out, but as they passed overhead, she saw that they were like the bird boy. Not human. Not on a level of understanding. One of them circled, letting out a high, piercing cry like a hawk.

The bird boy went tense and looked at Stacia.

"Is that your family?" she asked.

He cooed uncertainly. He stood up and took a few steps after them.

"It's okay," Stacia said. "You can go."

He glanced at her and then sprinted along the road. His wings beat, so powerfully they tossed her hair back. He rose swiftly into the air and it was wonderful to watch. Not at all like the fancy swoops and twirls of the Flock at the CSM airshow. Just pure power, moving like an arrow, straight up. He followed the winged figures into the distance, until she couldn't see them anymore. He never came back.

* * *

Stacia removed her bandages gradually. There were pale, puckered scars across her stomach, and pitted marks all over her skin. She could still feel her missing leg whenever she closed her eyes. When she looked in the mirror, she didn't see Stacia. She saw a pale, ghastly-looking girl. A zombie.

She logged into the blog site. Her username, _thegirlwiththemojo,_ was burned into her brain. She didn't feel like someone with mojo. It took her two tries to remember her password. Then she found Brynn's comment and typed as rapidly as her fingers would move. The Internet was lagging.

 _THIS IS STACIA I'M ALIVE! I am in Colorado I am okay more or less! Please write back if you're okay!_

She feverishly refreshed the page all day. Other commenters posted, greeting her, but not Brynn.

Brynn's reply appeared the following morning.

 _I can't believe it! I missed you so much! Yes, I'm okay. Mom and Dad and Kyler are too. We just missed the flooding and a guy on a boat found us. You have to get out of Colorado. There are big fires and you're not too far from the outbreak of that plague thing. Are your gparents okay? GET TO THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MISSISSIPPI._

She had planned to stay in the house, but as she took inventory, she realized that there was no way the supplies would last her, even with the bird boy gone. The electricity and running water wouldn't last much longer. And she had no way to get new food. No garden, no weapons for hunting. She couldn't exactly pop down to the store—this house was in the middle of nowhere.

 _It's just me now,_ she said.

Brynn was online and shot right back. _I'm so sorry._ _Come to us._ _We're in a fallout shelter in Michigan, getting ready for the nuclear winter. We have to try to stay in contact. Internet servers are already shutting down. This server probably won't be up much longer, and more and more people are losing power anyway. Can you get a CB radio?_

So that was Stacia's goal. Michigan. Brynn sent her the address privately and she put it into Google maps. It would only take her about nineteen hours driving to get there. Or sixteen days walking. Google Maps did not have an estimate for how long it would take by wheelchair.

 _I don't know, but I'm heading towards you now. Thegirlwiththemojo, out._

She printed out a map to Brynn's location. Mr. Dead Scientist had a car, so Stacia loaded all the food and a small can opener into the back seat, followed by any clean blankets and clothes she could find. She folded up the wheelchair and put it in the back, and then hopped awkwardly around to the driver's seat.

She would drive for as far as ¾ of a tank of gas would get her, and then she would figure something else out.

Good thing you only needed one foot to drive. She turned the key in the ignition and the engine stuttered to life. She backed into the wall behind her and knocked over a rack of tools. She shifted gears and pulled out of the garage and onto the abandoned road.

* * *

 **Our first canon character makes a belated appearance! Next chapter, things start to pick up speed a little. I have eight chapters planned currently for this entire thing. Pretty short. Let me know what you think!**


	4. Moving Right Along

**Take two. I took this chapter down because my updates were not making my story move up in the results list. Let's see if it will send out an update this time.**

Stacia drove past dried-out riverbeds and sometimes, in the distance, she saw what looked like a tornado of fire. (Firenado? She'd have to think of a better name.) The United States had dried to a crisp, just waiting for one spark.

She scanned the radio constantly. Most of the stations were static, but sometimes she could make out garbled voices, never quite in focus. She heard one news station reporting quick and fast, but it was in Spanish. Once she heard the strains of a Taylor Twins song, a totally bizarre drop of history, but then it faded out again and she couldn't get it back.

It had been a couple of months now since the Event. Maybe all the radio stations were gone.

She slept in the car, bundled up, between long periods of driving. She ate out of cans. Sometimes she got out of the car to stretch. She was alone in an alien entirely alone, though. She saw coyotes, she thought—some kind of doglike animals, creeping through ruined buildings. And sometimes she saw graffiti tags that she thought were new. Some of them said "One Light," and others were cryptic lines of nonsense. Codes for those who were in the know. If Stacia could have read them, maybe they would have pointed her towards a real bed and food. Or maybe not.

She stopped whenever she saw a car, hoping to siphon some gas from their tanks. Most of the abandoned vehicles had already been looted, strip-mined for resources.

She parked her car alongside an abandoned minivan and tried to get at the dregs of the gas tank, when she heard footsteps behind her. She spun halfway, supporting herself against the side of the car, and saw a trio of boys with guns.

One of them clicked his tongue. "Look at that. You lost, lady?"

"Get her, Stiff," leered one of his buddies.

She wouldn't be able to hop into the car or start it fast enough—a bullet would outrace her. Maybe she could hit him over the head with her siphon pump. "I have a gun in my car."

"Sure you do," Stiff said with a smirk.

"Hey, I'm not bothering you!"

"It's not about bothering anybody." He kept his rifle pointed at her as he strolled forward. "Go ahead. Scream. I like a good scream."

"Don't we all?" said a bold voice.

Two more boys perched atop a wall nearby—one holding a gun, the other standing up straight with his hands in his pockets. The one with the gun dropped to the ground and started advancing. He was much larger than the first trio, and they all took a step back.

The boy on the wall rolled his head to one side thoughtfully, still talking. "You've got your horror movie screams, your roller coaster screams . . ."

"I told you this is our territory!" Stiff hissed.

"You gonna mess with Horsemen?" he said.

Stiff and his buddies immediately backed off, looking surly. The boy on the ground, with the gun, had not spoken yet. He kept moving forward, they skittered back again, and finally they broke and ran. The sound of their running footsteps faded into the distance.

The boy on the wall jumped down without even taking his hands out of his pockets.

Stacia grabbed the handle of her car door. "Back off! I have a gun in my car and I will use it!"

He stopped and squinted. "Stacia?"

"Omar?"

Omar was alive. Omar, from the blog.

Stacia got out a couple cans of fruit salad and spam, and her two rescuers sat crosslegged on the ground and wolfed it down. Omar's friend kept the gun close by his hand, waiting.

"What if they come back?" Stacia asked.

"They won't for a while." Omar was wearing oven mitts over his hands. He indicated the boy next to him. "This is Meg."

Meg was hulking and stocky, with pale hair and eyes and a haughty expression.

"Isn't Meg the sister in Little Women?" said Stacia.

"No, _this_ is Meg. Pay attention." Omar kept glancing at the stump of her leg. "I'm guessing you ended up on your own, too."

"I have a car." For how much longer, she didn't know. "I haven't heard from you in months. On the blog we were all wondering what happened to you. Who were those guys with guns?"

"Doomsday Group," Omar said nonchalantly, scratching the back of his neck with a mitt.

"I thought the Flock stopped them."

"Nope. We're still around." Omar hesitated. "Meg and I aren't really Doomsday We just try to go with the flow. They're less likely to kill us if we're part of the group. See, there's this thing about killing people to become a Horseman. Meg and I aren't interested, we've gotten more than enough extreme body modification, but most people think we're Horsemen just because they've never seen any real ones."

"So what happened to make you leave? What was all that crazy stuff you were posting before you went AWOL?"

He set his fruit salad aside with a sigh. "Doomsday came to my school. I don't really remember much of what happened after that. I was acting crazy, brainwashed. I think I ended up in Arizona near the end. They were modifying people's DNA, a few people. They modified mine. But I didn't get wings."

"What did you end up with?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Fine. How'd you get out?"

"There was another girl, Ella or something like that. They were going to give her wings, but out of nowhere, her mom showed up. She got the three of us out. She wanted to take me and Meg on a plane, but we left. We were going to go back to Florida and find my parents." Omar's lighthearted, casual tone faded. "We never got there. I never even got to say sorry."

"My grandparents are gone." Stacia balled her hands into fists, staring at the ground. "It's just been me and them as long as I can remember. It sucks. It all sucks."

She looked at Meg, but he appeared to have nothing to add to the discussion.

"What happened to your leg?" Omar mumbled.

"H8E virus. Infection."

"You survived the _H83 virus_? How?!"

"Some scientist found me. I've got mojo, remember?" She didn't want to talk about her leg. "What about you? What did the Doomsday Group do to your DNA?"

"You're going to think it's stupid."

"Tell me," she begged. "Come onnnn."

He grimaced, and finally slipped off his mitts. Underneath, his hands were oversized, with thick white claws.

"Mole DNA," he muttered.

Stacia burst out laughing. "That's great!"

"Shut up."

"What can you do?" Stacia said to Meg. She had figured out why his face looked weird to her. It was totally symmetrical. Normal people had tiny imperfections and differences, but he was as perfect as a doll. Except for his nose, which was just slightly crooked, like it had been broken once.

He delivered her an expressionless stare.

"Hello?" She waved a hand. "Earth to Meg?"

"That is not my name." He hesitated. "It is an acceptable alternative."

"O-kay, then. What are your powers?"

He looked away quickly. "Nothing particularly effective."

"Mouse DNA?" she suggested. "Maybe snail?"

"Knock it off," Omar snapped.

Her laughter died away. "Are you sure the boys with the guns won't come back?"

Omar heaved himself off the ground. "Pretty sure. Where are you headed?"

"Michigan. You?"

"We're just trying to stay alive." He studied her car, apparently impressed, and she felt a twinge of fear.

She'd known Omar as a friend, but that had been over a year ago now. He was a stranger now. A member of the Doomsday Group. He and Meg could break her in half without even trying. What if they decided they needed her stuff more than they liked her?

"What if we team up?" Omar asked. "We haven't had a working car until now. We could really cover some ground that way."

"I don't know how long my food will last with three people."

"We can hunt," Omar said proudly. "Meg caught a bird once."

Honestly—she needed the help.

"Okay," she said. "Hop in, I guess."

"Do you have air conditioning?" Omar asked.

"Yes."

He hugged her so tight she squeaked, and then kissed her on both cheeks. "You are a real-life fairy godmother."

* * *

 **Our second canon character finally slides in! Anybody recognize him? He's going to be playing a pretty major role from here on out.**

 **Is there anyone else you'd like these guys to meet, or any places you'd like to see them go? Review and let me know.**


	5. Hark, the Herald

It was much more cramped with two guys in the car, along with a wheelchair and food and blankets. They brought their own supplies, which weren't much. Mainly jerky and candy bars. Stacia nearly cried when Omar gave her chocolate.

The boys were also much better than Stacia at tracking down and stealing gas. They made it well into Nebraska before blowing out a tire. Someone had put nails on the road.

"No!" Stacia cried when she saw the tire deflating. She hadn't brought a spare.

Not that there would have been time to change it. From the surrounding buildings came shrill whoops, swiftly growing nearer.

Omar grabbed whatever cans of food he could, collecting them in a blanket. Meg did the same and then hoisted Stacia off the ground to carry her piggyback.

"Won't you get tired?" she protested as he broke into a run.

"I do not feel fatigue."

They sprinted away from the car, with Omar in hot pursuit. When Stacia looked back, she saw people descending on the car. Adults, tearing inside to get at the supplies. They didn't follow the running kids—they were too distracted by the wealth of canned food still in the backseat.

"We forgot my wheelchair," Stacia said.

"Who cares about the wheelchair?" Omar gasped, barely keeping up with Meg.

Stacia reached down and grabbed him by the collar. " _Me._ "

"Okay, okay! I'll get you a new one! I promise!"

* * *

"You could have fought them," Stacia said later, sulking. They had lost nearly everything in fleeing. They sat in a dried-out riverbed, under a rocky ledge, doling out their meager rations.

"Listen," said Omar, "we can scare off two or three Doomsday punks. But a big group of adult scavengers like that?"

"You're mutants! You have powers!"

"Su-u-ure. I'll burrow them to death."

"What about Meg? He's strong and fast."

"I do not perceive motion properly," Meg muttered.

"So . . . ?" Stacia waved her hands in the air.

Omar butted in. "If something moves too fast, he sees it like a film reel. It's called motion blindness."

"Inconspicuous akinetopsia," Meg interjected.

"Gesundheit." Omar turned to Stacia again. "He looks big and scary, but he can't see what he's fighting."

She paused for a minute and then flung up her hands. "What good does that do us?"

"Not much," Omar admitted.

Night fell, and they watched the stars through a colorful haze.

"This is how the dinosaurs died," said Stacia, bundled in a blanket. "A meteor hit the earth then too. Now we're the dinosaurs."

"I do not understand."

"She's being metaphorical, Meg."

"Oh."

"I don't know how we're going to get to Michigan," Stacia whispered, "or find Brynn's compound."

"Me neither," said Omar.

"I used to be a cheerleader, you know," she said. "I wanted to be an Olympic gymnast. No more Olympics now."

And then she hit on the idea of a funeral.

For some reason it seemed very important just now to have a funeral. For her grandparents, and Omar's family, and everyone else.

"You have to have a body for a funeral," said Omar.

"Then a memorial service."

"How would you do a memorial service?"

So Stacia designed it. In lieu of flowers, she picked long grass with feathery plumes on the ends. She bundled them together in a dry, crackly bouquet. They had the memorial service right there where they were sitting.

"Dear God," she began. That just sounded stupid. She looked at Omar. "You pray."

He wouldn't meet her eyes. "You do it. If there's a god who'd let this happen . . . I'm not praying to him." He waved at the wasteland around them and then quickly crossed his arms again, tucking his big, awkward hands back into his elbows.

"I don't know what to say." Stacia tilted her head back and took a shuddering breath.

Meg's hand landed on hers, startling her.

They were all quiet for a minute. Stacia let the bouquet of grass fall to the ground, where it scattered and stirred in the wind.

They were alone in this husk of a world. She closed her eyes for a moment.

That was the memorial service. There was no gravestone. No gravestone could be large enough to encompass the sheer amount of death. No words could convey the weight of this grief and confusion. In their stead, the silence felt sort of right.

Omar sniffed a couple of times, and got a weird look on his face. Then he was standing, straight and tall as he could, staring at the horizon.

"Crap," he said. Then he and Meg both went running.

Stacia looked back and saw the smoke beginning to rise—followed by the tornado of flame. It had come out of nowhere.

"Guys!" she yelled. "Guys, wait, I can't—"

They skidded to a halt and stared wildly back at her. She could hear the roar of the fire now. At the look on their faces, an awful feeling came to her. She was a liability. She couldn't even offer them a car anymore. It would be stupid to stop and go back for her.

Meg bolted over to her and scooped her off the ground. She wound her arms around his neck tight and buried her face in his shirt. Ash was already falling around them, even before the first real ripples of heat hit them.

"This way!" Omar yelled. They cut away from the wind that carried the fire towards them.

There was grass everywhere. They ran through the narrow, dried-out ditch of a riverbed, overhung by dead trees, and surrounded by dry brown grass.

Omar dove to the ground. Stacia watched as he cut through the earth. He moved as smoothly as an Olympic swimmer through water, carving out a firebreak.

Meg stopped and said flatly, "There is not enough time."

"Omar!" Stacia yelled between coughs. The firenado built closer and closer. A smaller one spun out from it. "Omar, come _on! Omar!_ "

* * *

The air was full of drifting ash. Sooty and exhausted, they tied strips of blanket over their faces to keep from breathing it in. They kept walking, trying to move away from the sparks that might land and set the dry ground alight again. Omar led the way; mole senses were the best for finding your way in this kin of dark.

"That's the second time you've saved my life," Stacia said, still perched on Meg's back.

"We would not have left you," Meg said. She couldn't see his face in the dark, but he really didn't seem to get tired at all. "You are a valuable asset."

She snorted. "I'm a what now? Why am I valuable?"

Meg looked at Omar, who shrugged. "You're the one who said it."

"I don't know how else to phrase it."

A flapping noise approached, and Stacia stiffened. "What's that?"

Someone was watching them from the darkness.

"It's a little kid," Omar said, with some nervousness.

A flashlight clicked on. It _was_ a little girl holding it. Just a cute little kid, but they all froze anyway, ready for a threat. Even kids could be members of the Doomsday Group, ready to kill.

As the little girl walked forward, her tan skin lightened. Straight brown hair curled into golden waves. Her dark eyes brightened to pale blue.

"Omar. Omega. I've been looking for you."


	6. Wanderers Wandering

The blonde child stood in front of them, as pale and out-of-place as a ghost.

"Jordyn?" Meg said, and he did not look stoic at all anymore. He looked utterly flipping terrified of this tiny eight-year-old girl. "But you died, you _died_ —"

Omar put a hand on his chest, holding him back. "Okay, there. Jordyn was a clone. You're Angel, aren't you? Fang's Angel?"

White wings opened behind the little girl's back.

"I'm here to help," she said. She was filthy, with hollow and hungry cheeks, yet she was filled with serenity and confidence. "I'm here to show you the truth."

Images flooded into Stacia's mind. So many images. There was so much she could barely comprehend it. She wanted to kneel, to listen. Angel would show them the way.

Stacia blinked, the world slotting back into place again. She was rushing over the ground at high speed—almost as fast as a car. Meg nearly flew across the ground, with Stacia on his shoulder and Omar under one arm.

"Meg?" Stacia said as she emerged from the euphoric haze.

"AAAAAAAAGHHH," Meg answered.

"Stop!" Angel dropped down in front of them again, landing a little clumsily. She held out her tiny hands like a policeman stopping traffic.

"I don't need you in my head again!" Meg shouted.

"Please calm down," Omar said in a small voice.

"It's all right," said Angel. "I'm not Jordyn. I'm Angel, from the Flock. Stacia, Omar, you know me from Fang's blog."

"Yeah," said Stacia. She tapped Meg's shoulder until he set her down and she balanced against him. "You . . . you want us to go to Russia. You want us to help you fight the Remedy."

Angel nodded. A wave of approval—gentler this time, less forceful—brushed against Stacia's mind. The telepath was treading more carefully.

"No," said Meg. He was as tense and jumpy as a scared rabbit, no longer emotionless.

Angel looked frustrated.

"Why didn't you just ask us?" Stacia said, growing frustrated herself. "You didn't need to use mind control."

"I was just trying to show you. Sometimes it helps—"

"Helps _you,_ " Stacia said. She remembered stuff on Fang's blog about Angel being freaky. Angel playing people like puppets for her own ends. She glanced down, and felt bitter. "Like I could even help you anyway. You're not looking for me, are you? You're just looking for the useful ones, like Omar and Meg. The ones who'll be good at survival of the fittest."

"Everyone has some part to play," said Angel.

"I thought you people were supposed to save the world," Stacia shot back.

Angel opened her mouth.

"Just—don't talk." Stacia tried to remember that she was a teenager, and this was a little kid. She couldn't just start screaming at people. "How do we even know you're telling the truth?"

"You could be showing us false visions," Omar said, "couldn't you?"

"That's not what I'm doing," Angel said. "I _am_ showing you the truth."

"But we wouldn't know the difference if you lied," Omar said.

Meg just folded his arms. "You can never trust a telepath."

Stacia faced the boys. "Okay. We can choose to trust her, turn around, backtrack the whole way we already travelled, and follow the freaky mind-controlling eight-year-old to Russia and possibly die in battle. Or we can go to Michigan and try to track down Brynn's group."

Stacia tried to think. What would Brynn do, if she was given the choice? She'd probably go to Russia in a second. She wouldn't even need Angel to beam thoughts into her head. She'd just grab her backpack and go, because if people needed protecting, Brynn was going to be there protecting them.

But Stacia wasn't Brynn. She was Stacia, broken and prickly and mean, and she didn't care what happened in Russia. So maybe this Remedy guy in Angel's visions would try to destroy what was left of the world. Maybe it would be better to just end it already. In any case, Stacia couldn't make a difference. She'd just get in the way.

"That's—" Angel began.

"Get out of my head," Stacia barked. "I'm not going with you."

"And I can tell if you influence them," Meg said. His eyes were cold and narrow, focused intensely on Angel.

The little girl took a step back. She glanced at Omar, sighed a little, and then launched off the ground. She disappeared through the clouds of ash.

Stacia felt miserable, and guilty, and mean, and selfish.

"Let's go," she snarled. "Michigan's not getting any closer on its own."

* * *

They kept moving. Stacia made herself a crutch from a long, forked banch. She wrapped a strip of blanket around the fork so that it wouldn't dig into her skin.

"I name you Sticky. Serve me well."

Meg stared at her like she was speaking an alien language, and she turned pink. To distract herself, she asked, "Who's Jordyn?"

Meg bristled instantly.

"Remember the Lerner School for Gifted Children?" Omar asked.

"Yeah. I watched the videos. The Flock was at the opening."

"They never really attended, but the other rescued experiments did." Omar nodded towards Meg. "A while after school started, this rich guy, Nino Pierpont, came in and took a bunch of the kids with him. But a few of them ran away and eventually ended up with the Doomsday Group. One was Meg, and another was Jordyn. She was a clone of Angel."

"She controlled people," said Meg. "She couldn't control me, so she tried to kill me."

"We're working on that in counseling," Omar said. "She's dead now. She can't hurt anyone anymore."

"She's still around," Meg said, and his eyes were very dark. "She says she's not the same person, but she is. She wants to control people, too."

Stacia wasn't sure whether that was true, but she didn't really care.

They crossed into green land, where there was actually water.

They raided a grocery store, taking the last bits of food that hadn't already been looted. Stacia gained a new jacket and a nice new jogging shoe—no one had cared to steal the unmatched display model, and it was the right size and shape, so it was hers. She crowed over that one all day, and went to sleep wearing it. They slept in the middle of the furniture section, camped out on broken-down chairs and couches.

She was sleeping rolled up in her new blanket when Omar shook her. "Stacia. Hey, Stace. There's turkeys. Me and Meg are going to go get one."

"Okay." She swatted at him, still half-asleep, and rolled over. "Bring me gravy."

His footsteps receded. She sighed comfortably as she settled back into her drowsy rest.

She woke some time later. It was light outside now. Omar and Meg's blankets lay in a heap where they had fallen. They still weren't back.

Leaning on Sticky, she made her way to the front door. The glass had shattered out of them a long time ago. She could see the trees waving gently, and the rusting hunks of cannibalized cars in the parking lot, but no sign of the boys.

She heard a clanking noise, and straightened up. "Guys?"

Were they hiding just out of sight, waiting to scare her? Or—was it a stranger? Some other looter, looking for leftovers, like them? Her grip tightened on her crutch.

She looked around, and noticed something. There was some building further down the road. She hadn't even glanced at it twice last night, when they were totally intent on groceries. An uneasy feeling filled her. She took a hop back, feeling ridiculously unsafe in the open, unprotected store.

Movement, in the parking lot. Someone slipped between the cars.

A man and a woman stepped out, holding guns. The man immediately lowered his rifle. "Maddie, it's just a kid!"

The woman kept her rifle trained on Stacia. "How many of you are there?"

"Me and a couple of friends." Best to make it clear she wasn't alone, or defenseless. "They'll be back to get me soon—they're out hunting. We're just passing through. We didn't mean to take your food. We thought we were alone."

Their eyes lingered on her leg.

"How do you feel about the One Light?" said Maddie.

"We don't follow the One Light. We're just trying to survive." Stacia did not feel comfortable around those guns.

"I'm Barthelemy," said the man. "Why don't you come with us? It's not safe out here." He glanced towards the building down the road. "It's really not safe out here."


	7. Signs and Revelations

Angel soared over the barren landscape. Some minds called out to her. Her visions had given her a list of faces, people to seek out. People they'd need in the battle, and after - when they began to rebuild.

Fortunately, her own small body grounded her. She couldn't lose herself in the visions of the future, or the minds of other survivors. Hunger and fatigue dragged her back to the physical world. She had to eat. She had to sleep.

Not everyone trusted her at first. She understood why. She'd seen inside their heads, and so she knew what they'd been through. Each and every one of them.

She dropped down in front of a burned-out husk of a building. She made her way to a storm drain. She could hear the quick, frantic thoughts echoing from inside.

"Hello," she said, and sent a coaxing strand of mental speech to the mutant child hiding inside. A little boy with wings and horns. He crept out, eyes reflecting the light.

She broadcast what needed to be done. He nodded slowly, his eyes alight with understanding.

Many people responded well. But every now and then, you got the few who wouldn't have faith.

She took to the air again, watching as the boy took wing heading towards Russia. If she saw him again, it would be at the makeshift camp. She had dropped by the camp a few times, early on, as the first people got there to organize. The next time she went there, it would be for the final battle.

He mind kept drifting back to Omega and his group.

Jeb had said Omega had no soul.

No, he'd said Max was the last of the hybrids with a soul. Did that mean Angel, and the younger ones, didn't have souls? What did that even mean? How could Jeb decide who had a soul and who didn't? Her fists clenched. She remembered the last time she'd encountered Jeb, in the whitecoats' facility, when she was blind and imprisoned. She remembered Jeb in Germany, when he'd seemed so earnest and open and kind. He was the only one without a soul.

She pushed Jeb from her thoughts. Back in Germany, Omega had been totally focused on killing Max. There was no anger or hatred in him, just a cold pinpoint on the fact that he had been trained to kill Max and he was going to do it. It had been scary. It was his whole reason for being. And Angel hadn't been able to control him then, either. His mind was fuzzy and hard to get a grip on.

Now she couldn't even read his mind.

This wasn't good at all. Because she'd seen what might happen. If Omega and Omar didn't join Angel's army . . . they'd be on the other side. And in all of her visions, Omega was on that battlefield, and he annihilated everyone in his path.

* * *

Meg plodded behind Omar, carrying the turkeys they'd killed. A triumphant return.

"We got turkeyyyy!" Omar sang as he strutted up to the store. "Meg, keep up."

Then he stopped, and Meg nearly ran into him from behind.

"Wait," said Omar. His nostrils flared. "Someone was here."

He and Meg dove as one behind the husk of a car. They barely needed to exchange signals anymore - they were both used to going for cover at the first sign of danger.

If Omar smelled something, that was bad. They'd been careless, wandering around, talking in loud voices to each other, gloating over their kill and yelling out to Stacia. She should have been right here at the door, waiting for them. Instead it lay empty and the whole lot and the whole store lay quiet and empty. This was not an optimal situation.

"Where is Stacia?" Meg said, because Omar was scenting the air as he did when he was gathering information.

"Shhh. I'm going to look for her."

"We should not split up." Meg had a solid, if unimaginative, grasp of tactics. Dividing the group made it more vulnerable to attack.

"I gotta search for her trail. Maybe she's just inside using the bathroom or something. It'll be quieter if it's just me."

Meg looked up at the sky, at the trees around them, at the building that loomed in the distance with the dark smokestacks. Omar started to move, and Meg grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and held him still.

"Something is wrong," said Meg. No, everything was wrong. Somehow, he already knew they wouldn't find Stacia inside the store. She was gone.

His mouth felt as if it was full of ash and his breath came quickly. He felt like he did when he'd seen Jordyn - Angel.

Fear. That's what this physical response was called. But that didn't make any sense. To his knowledge, he was not in any immediate physical danger. In fact, if he withdrew from this non-optimal situation now, there was a significant probability that everything would be fine and the most exciting thing to happen to him today would be turkey for dinner. Really, he should not be experiencing above-average levels of stress right now.

But when he put his hand over his chest, it felt like he had a bird instead of a heart inside his ribcage, wings beating in a frenzy.

* * *

"This way," said Maddie. She led them through trees, apparently towards their base camp. She kept a firm hand on Stacia's upper arm, both supporting and restraining her.

"My friends will be looking for me," Stacia said a little sharply.

"Then they can find you at our camp," Maddie said.

"Don't be too rough on her, Maddie," said Barthelemy. "She's just a kid."

"Can't we stay and wait for them?" Stacia asked. She didn't trust these people, and she especially didn't trust Barthelemy's soft, ingratiating voice.

Maddie shook her head. "Can't take that chance. Survivors don't last long on their own out here. We'll go back for your friends. Get them to the compound too. Then - well, we'll see."

"How did you end up on your own, anyway?" Barthelemy asked Stacia.

"Well, I had the H8E Plague, but I got better . . ."

They both leaped away from her. Barthelemy was the first to recover. He laughed nervously. "The H8E Plague is lethal, sweetheart."

"I survived," she said. "That's how I got these scars and lost my leg."

Maddie scraped her hands convulsively against her pant legs, shuddering. Her eyes were full of disgust and terror.

"I'm not sick anymore," Stacia said.

Both of the adults slowly backed away from her.

"Just . . ." Barthelemy held up his hands. He wore the same sick-scared look as Maddie, and his gentle voice wavered and squeaked. "We just need to see about getting you decontaminated. Saw a lot of people die from the plague. You probably didn't even have it at all, you just had a nasty little bug."

Stacia took a hopping step away from them. Then she turned and hurried back towards the store.

"Don't go," Barthelemy said, although not with much conviction. He didn't want her near them. He flinched when she turned towards him. Even the _mention_ of H8E was enough to make them terrified of her. "It's dangerous."

She left them behind, limping as fast as she could. She had to get to the store and take cover. Had to find the boys. At least maybe the strangers be too scared of the virus to follow her. Something weird was going on here. Something was wrong with them. Something was wrong with this whole area.

Her neck stung, as if something had bitten her. She put her free hand up and felt a dart protruding from her skin.

 _It's not safe here._ Barthelemy had said that. Or something like it.

"Omar." She tried to call, but her voice was a mumble. "Meg . . ."

 _Not safe here._

That building in the distance with the smokestacks. What was it? And where were Maddie and Barthelemy? What had they done? What kind of trap had Stacia walked into?

Black dots started to dance around the edge of her eyes, creeping forward, like oblivion embracing her from behind, inviting her to fall.

 _Not safe . . ._

* * *

When she woke, she was strapped to a chair. The ceiling hung high above her, and a boy with a scaly green face leaned over her. His eyes were round and staring. Stacia blinked. She knew him from somewhere . . .

"So you're Omega's girlfriend," he said. "Let's see how much he cares about getting you back."


	8. What'Chu Gonna Do

Stacia was in a room, some kind of computer lab, with a high raftered ceiling and no windows. She twisted her wrists against restraining cuffs, staring up at the person by her.

"You're Mr. Chu!" she said. "The Scooby-Doo villain guy!"

"And you must be one of the fans of that puerile blog." The green-scaled boy tightened the restraint on her wrist with a yank. "In point of fact, I am not Mr. Chu. The original Chu is dead. I stepped into his place to better aid the Remedy."

His scaly skin puffed out and then went smooth, like normal flesh. He slowly took on the appearance of an older Asian man, slight of build. Then he peeled off his skin with a _shluck_ noise, and reemerged once more as the scaly green kid. Stacia grimaced at the sight of the fleshy mask falling to the ground.

Ignoring her reaction, he picked up her crutch from the desk nearby. "I will say, you seem a resourceful girl. I'm afraid you're in the way, though."

"You'll never get away with this," Stacia said. She paused. "What are you doing?"

"Serving the One Light."

"Didn't the Flock beat you guys?"

"The Flock," he scoffed. "Some heroes they are. A pack of spoiled children and bullies. I met them, back when I was younger and more naive. They pulled us out of our cages, where Itex's scientists at least gave us food and medicine. The Flock left us to die in the sewers of New York. They were too blind to even recognize me when they met me again."

"I'm sure that's not—"

"Oh, most of us died. It barely took a day, in those filthy conditions, some of us already half-dead. Others were recaptured. But I was liberated. Enlightened. The Remedy _showed_ me." He stepped closer, staring up into Stacia's eyes with fierce, pleading intensity. "He can show you too if you let him."

"Show me what?"

"The truth."

"You know, people who talk about showing me the truth tend to be freaky brainwashy types. I like my brain as is."

He glared at her, and then his skin began to melt. It turned light brown, and little indented scars appeared across it in place of scales. His hair darkened and lengthened and suddenly Stacia was looking at her mirror image.

"It won't work," she said. "You've got both legs."

"Your friends won't notice from a distance," he said in her voice, an echo gone wrong. "My master is very interested in your Omega."

Stacia pulled against the restraints, to no avail. Chu smirked as he pulled on her jacket. With the crutch in one hand, walked lightly out with a spring in his step.

"Aren't you going to tell me your evil plan?" Stacia yelled after him. "What the Remedy is planning?"

Chu glanced back at her. "No. Don't be stupid."

The door swung shut behind him.

* * *

Meg and Omar went searching through the trees. Omar followed Stacia's scent as best he could; she'd been with strangers, he said.

He froze without warning. "We've got company."

A brightly colored figure stepped out of the trees. Omar jumped and slammed right into Meg. At first Meg could barely recognize the figure as human; it was buried in equipment until it was waddling along in its hazmat suit.

"Hey!" Omar yelled. "Not another step, you hear me?"

It paused, reached up and removed the helmet.

"Oh, no," said Meg.

"Do not move or you vill be shot," said the blond, lanky man inside the suit. And sure enough, Meg could hear guns clicking safeties off. Red lasers pointed directly at his chest. He raised his hands slowly, nudging Omar to do the same, and more figures in hazmats began to creep from the trees with their weapons.

The blond man cleared his throat. "Vhere iss de girl?"

"Who are you?" Omar snapped. "We're Horsemen, you know. We're with the One Light. You want to live through the next few minutes, you're gonna want to put those guns down."

"Omar," Meg said quietly.

The blond man just shook his head. "Always vis dese children, thinking dey are smarter." He raised a hand. "Shoot de small one."

"No!" Meg cried, trying to block Omar.

"If you shoot me, he'll tear you limb from limb!" Omar yelled.

"No, no, no! We'll cooperate!" Meg was slipping, talking too fast, using contractions. He swallowed, trying to calm his voice to normal levels. He just wanted Omar to stop bluffing. Bluffing was not going to help. Not with these people. He knew the man in front of him all too well.

Dr. Roland ter Borcht rolled his eyes. "At least you haff some respect. All right, do not shoot de small one yet."

"What do you want?" Meg's voice was shaking, betraying him.

"I haf already told you. I vant de girl with one leg, de girl who claims she survived de H8E virus. You know of her?"

Omar shook his head quickly but Meg nodded.

"She's missing," Omar snapped. "What did you do with her? Did your people take her?"

"Yes," ter Borcht said too cheerily, and Omar lunged, and Meg caught him. "Madelyn over dere - de one in de bush to your right with de sniper rifles. Unfortunately she let de girl go."

The woman with the sniper rifle, just barely visible, glanced at him with terror in her eyes. It was clear ter Borcht was in charge, even as pale and weedy and ineffectual as he looked.

"Of course," said ter Borcht, "if dere is a survivor of the H8E virus, den I must study her. You vill help me find her."

"We know as much as you do," Omar shot back.

"Den you know where she is."

Omar faltered. "No."

"She iss at de Remedy's outpost." The former whitecoat pointed towards the building with the smokestacks.

"You are not with the Remedy?" Meg asked slowly.

"No longer. I vould not play his games, so now it seems we are on de same side. I know vhere she is. You two can get inside. Vhat do you say . . . ve make a deal."

* * *

 **WeaverOfDarkDreams called it.**

 **In the absence of any other information, I made shapeshifting "Mr. Chu's" power. I also made him one of the kids that the Flock rescued and then lost touch with in Book 1.**


	9. Breakout

It took Stacia about thirty minutes to squirm one hand free of the restraints. Fortunately she had skinny hands, and everything in this room was old and rickety.

The biggest challenge ended up being getting across the room to the computer. But she made it to the desk chair and sat up. She scanned banks of video screens, showing scenes from all over the facility. Dozens of rooms stockpiled with guns or food, with guards patrolling the long long halls.

The pile of pages next to her caught her eye, and she began to flick through them.

 ** _Engels, Edda_** _: deceased. Cause of death: H8E virus._

 ** _Dwyer, Brigid_** _: deceased. Cause of death: Thermal injury._

 ** _Gomy, Tara_** _: deceased. Cause of death: H8E virus._

 ** _Janssen, Marian:_** _deceased. Cause of death: Natural disaster._

 ** _Martinez, Valencia:_** _Whereabouts unknown. **Note** : This operative broke programming, considered major threat. _

**_Powers, Walter_** _: deceased. Cause of death: Self-inflicted._

 ** _Ter Borcht, Roland_** _: Whereabouts unknown._

 ** _[Redacted] alias Walker, Anne_** _: deceased. Cause of death: Radiation poisoning._

 ** _[Redacted], Beth_** _: deceased. Cause of death: Drowning._

 ** _[Redacted], Mark_** _: deceased. Cause of death: Impalement._

Some of the names were familiar, but many more of them she didn't recognize.

And then she saw the names of the Flock. Nudge—terminated. Total, Gazzy, Iggy, Fang—all terminated. She covered her mouth.

Another scroll showed her the plans for the nuclear bombs. The bombs that had been used to pick off survivors of the meteor. They were going to use the last of them, from their base in Russia, to end it all.

Angel had been telling the truth after all. Here it was in black and white. Rage bloomed in Stacia's chest like a flower made of fire. She would burn this whole building down. Or at least the gun rooms.

Ha! Sure enough, there were self-destruct switches with countdown timers. Ooh, and a microphone.

"Hello," said Stacia into the microphone. "This is an official announcement. There has been a change of plans. Anyone who kills a survivor will be severely disciplined."

"You're not supposed to be there," said a voice. Stacia spun in the chair to find a boy pointing a gun at her.

"You're not real," he said with crazed eyes. "You're an illusion. The One Light reveals all."

Stacia rallied from her surprise. She pretended she wasn't shaking in terror. (Mr. Chu wasn't the only one who could act.) "Put down the gun, you idiot. I'm _from_ the One Light, and he isn't happy with the way your boss has been running things."

The boy's gun wavered. He looked baffled.

"Now please clear . . . um . . . Sections A and C," Stacia said sweetly into the microphone, checking the map of the building. "We are about to be doing some remodeling."

A radio lit up nearby. The voice on the other end was deep and gravelly—an adult, an angry adult. "State your name and designation."

"Um, no," Stacia said. "That is, um, Level 5 Clearance, which you do not have."

"This is a Horseman," said the voice on the radio. "There is no such thing as Level 5 Clearance."

The boy aimed his gun at her again. "You're trying to trick us."

"Put that down right this second, young man," said Stacia, the way her grandmother would have said it, and he actually lowered the weapon.

"Intruders in the base," said the voice on the radio. "All stations be on alert—" And then there was a smacking noise, and a grunt, and the voice cut off.

Stacia pushed herself up in her chair, her eyes going wide. A group of figures had just entered the building at the front door. And the largest figure was punching everyone who tried to get in his way.

A minute later, Omar came reeling backwards through the door, holding a disheveled Stacia/Chu in a death grip.

"Stacia? Are you okay? Did he hurt you?"

"I'm fine!" Stacia grabbed the boy's gun and pushed it down again.

Meg crashed in after Omar, breathing hard, with his fists balled up. He saw Stacia and relaxed.

"What's going on?" said the boy in a thin, reedy voice.

"Mike?" Omar faced Meg. "Everybody's supposed to be dead after the Apocalypse. Instead we're running into _more_ people we know!"

"I am an archangel," said Mike, wild-eyed.

"Okay. Have you been taking your meds, buddy?"

"I don't need them. I've been cleansed."

"Okaaay," said Omar, as he began strapping Chu into the same chair he'd had Stacia In earlier.

"Omega!" spat Chu. "The last soldier, the best. And you were beaten by an outdated, defective mutant. Now your Director is gone so you take orders from whoever is around—"

"No, I don't," Meg said, and then stuffed a gag into his mouth.

"How'd you know he wasn't me?" Stacia asked.

Omar tapped his nose. "He tried to hide so we wouldn't see his leg, but mole senses nailed him from fifteen feet away. He didn't even get a chance to fire his tranq gun."

"And they had help," said another voice, heavily accented. A man approached from the doorway, moving on steady feet straight towards Stacia. "My people vill keep de guards occupied for a few more minutes."

He pulled down his gas mask and studied Stacia with a pale, fishy gaze. She felt like he was measuring her, laying her out on a cutting board and dissecting her with every flick of his eyes. "Tell me exactly vhat happened to you."

She widened her eyes in a question at the boys.

"This is Dr. Roland ter Borcht," said Omar, sounding resigned. "He . . . kinda helped us get to you."

Stacia pushed herself up, supporting herself against the desk. Her heart pounded. This guy was Itex. He was a bad guy. He'd been convicted of horrific experiments . . .

"There's not much to it," she said in a thin voice. "Some scientist found me in Colorado and took me to his house. I woke up and I wasn't sick anymore."

"You should not haff woken up at all. Dere is no cure. Dere are only experimental vaccines. You cannot possibly haff survived."

"Then I guess I had some _other_ deadly flesh-eating plague," snapped Stacia.

"What did dis scientist do to you to make you recover?"

"I don't know!" Stacia cried. "I'd love to know! But I was unconscious for months, and when I woke up, he was already dead! There's nothing I can tell you, so you might as well just leave me be."

In another step, he seized her arm. He had a needle in one hand and he sank it into her flesh and she cried out in pain. The red line of blood ran up the needle.

"Dis will be easier if you do not struggle."

Meg slammed into him and sent him flying. The needle didn't break, but went rolling away across the gray concrete floor.

Meg grabbed Stacia's crutch and hurried over to her, but she recoiled. He'd worked with ter Borcht, of all people. When she lurched back from him, he looked like she'd stabbed him in the chest.

And then Omar yelped. Chu had just raked claws against his chest, scoring him to the blood. Chu shoved him back and dove to grab the needle, snatching it up the second before Ter Borcht could reach it.

"Give it to me," said Ter Borcht. His wispy hair was wild, his eyes crazed.

"You have no business with this," Chu hissed. "You are old. You are outdated. The Remedy has no use for you."

"And I haff no use for the Remedy." There were distant gunshots, and ter Borcht's smile gleamed. He yanked a small pistol from a corner of his coat and pointed it at Chu's chest.

Omar was clutching his wounded chest, scrambling back from the scene with the gun, and Meg wavered between Stacia and Omar.

Stacia made a choice.

She slammed her hand down on the self-destruct switch for the building, seized Meg's arm and said, "Private hanger. Now."

* * *

They ran through the halls - Omar scooped them both off their feet and ran for it. Stacia pointed the way. At one point Omar skidded to a halt; before them, down the hall, there was gunfire and animalistic roars.

They dodged down another hall. Stacia kept up the countdown in her head. How long until the building exploded?

They came skidding out into the private hanger, nose to nose with a tiny jet.

"Can you fly a plane?" said Omar as Meg set him down.

Meg raised his hand. "I can!"

They both stared at him.

"I can," he said, blushing. "They managed to program me with _some_ useful information."

"Let's go," Stacia said.

As Meg hoisted her into the cockpit, she noticed a green face appear in a window high above them, just for a second.

"Where should we go?" Omar asked, as Meg took the controls.

"Russia," said Stacia. "We're going to Russia and we're going to help stop the Remedy."

The boys exchanged a look, and Omar started to grin. "We might as well go out doing something crazy awesome."

"You're both already crazy," said Meg. He sighed, and started the plane. They rose into the air. Stacia watched a little anxiously. It should have exploded by now. Something should have happened.

Someone must have stopped the self-destruct counter. Whether Chu or ter Borcht, she didn't know. Which one had beaten the other, she didn't know. It was woefully underwhelming, but now the building was only a postage stamp on the ground far below, and then it was gone. They were on their way to Russia.


End file.
